Just watched the new video in the resource section, and it struck a chord with me, since it mentioned seeing a pediatric allergist within a few weeks or months. We've been waiting since March, I called the office and they said we should get a letter within a few months for an appt in early 2010, but once we have the letter we can call and ask to be put on a cancellation list. I'm very frustrated/scared. I want more info on what we need to avoid (other than peanuts), and I want to talk about my other kids, who at this point I plan to send snacks with for preschool. They are prone to unexplained rashes/hives and I"m not taking any chances with them. I debating whether to send them with an epipen, even though they have no history of food allergies.

That's a long time to wait! We waited 4 months for first appointment, I think and that seemed like forever.

I would call around to all the allergists in the area and find out what their wait times are, and then have your doctor refer you to the one with the shortest wait.

If it makes you feel any better, I find allergist appointments to be generally useless. Our allergist is a good guy, and a leader in the field, but when it comes right down to it, I get more practical information from my family doc, friends with allergic kids, and the internet than I do from him. He basically orders the blood tests, renews our epipen and hydrocortisone prescriptions and when the tests come back, he tells us to avoid whatever she's allergic to.

Other than that, there just isn't much certainty when it comes to interpreting allergy test results.

_________________6 year old son - eczema and sensitive skin4 year old daughter - allergic to nuts, peanuts, sesame seeds, mustard and eggs; has outgrown allergies to wheat and legumes (by age 2) and to dairy, soy (by age 3.5).

Urmila- I know it feels like that at times, but keep up the appointments!

Definative diagnosing is difficult and it is only through the gathering of a patient's history and correlating that data with what is known scientifically (which keeps changing). It takes a lot of experience to be able to qualify all of this information into something meaningful.

I think allergists are a rare breed. They are part of the scientific community but much of what they do seems subjective rather than objective.

Becky, hang in there! Just to clairify, is this appointment is to discuss how to procede with the children who have not been diagnosised with severe food allergies or is this to assess the child who has already been diagnosed?

Mostly for the already diagnosed child. We know he's ana to peanuts, but he's never had shellfish or tree nuts and I would rather do the skin tests before introducing them, or at the very least, it might give us a little more leeway for foods that 'processed on shared equipment with tree nuts'. I know there's the cross contamination issue, but at least it would be one more degree of separation.

I also want to ask about how to proceed with younger sibs, who are prone to unexplained rashes. Drawing blood for a RAST would be difficult from them, I think a skin test would be more user friendly. Although it would be another year before they could get in.

There are allergists with shorter waits, but they have mixed reputations.

I hadn't thought of that, since I do want the SPT done. But a consult would also be useful. It's about 2 hours away, so not something I'd want to drag my kid/s to more than needed, but I could go on my own. They did say that I can't book an appt til I get the letter, not sure if that applies to any appt or just the SPT.

Has your son been diagnosed with his peanut allergy by a SPT? Does he have an auto-injector of epinephrine? Who diagnoses this? I was assuming that this allergist is already following your son for his peanut allergy and you are trying to determine when and how to introduce other foods that are priority allergens.

He was diagnosed 6 months ago when he was given peanut butter at a birthday party (!), and had an anaphylactic reaction which required a trip to the ER and the full line up of meds. He then had follow up RAST testing and had a score of 100+ for peanuts. We have been seeing out family Dr. He was prescribed epipens by the ER doc who said 'Don't ever let him eat without having one around'. But, since then, we haven't gained any additional information, which I was hoping to by the SPT and further discussion with a pediatric allergist.

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